


The Tomb of Blossoms

by WilSquare



Category: Elder Scrolls
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Childhood Trauma, Dark Brotherhood (Elder Scrolls) - Freeform, Depression, Drama, Fantasy, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, POV First Person, POV Third Person, Post-Oblivion Crisis, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29524710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilSquare/pseuds/WilSquare
Summary: Aressia has spent the past ten years trying to obscure her past involvement with the Dark Brotherhood. Not only that, but the true identities of her adoptive parents - the Doyen of the Skingrad Thieves Guild and the notorious Phantom of Bravil - are just as big of a secret. When a familiar face from long ago disrupts her newly settled life, Aressia is forced to reconcile the two warring halves of herself; the child assassin she was, and the mother she is soon to become, before her web of falsehoods comes fully unraveled.The Tomb of Blossoms, while not a major book in the Melody of the Arcane series, expands on the core theme of the main plot by exploring the lasting effects of guilt and trauma. Although it is not required to understand the rest of the series, it will greatly enhance the eventual conclusion.
Relationships: OC/OC
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	The Tomb of Blossoms

_Across the divots in the stone tablet, I search. I trace. I find etched words. They are old and worn, yet curiosity’s lure is still found in them, and they have hooked me firmly. But their joined meaning remains foreign to me. My mouth opens. Gibberish tumbles out. My mouth closes again._

_“Do you know what it says, Little Sister?” a voice asks behind me._

_I turn. It is my Eldest Brother who is standing behind me. In even my foggiest memories, he is there. He is a slow-moving giant. He is creaky and wrinkly and his hair is thin and gray. To answer his question, I shake my head._

_“Would you like me to tell you?” he asks._

_I nod._

_Crouching down from the heavens, his pale face no longer cast in shadow, he offers his hand to me._

_I hesitate. I am gripped by a fear I barely understand, but I soon find the courage to take his offer. His hand is like a calloused stone. Mine is a squishy, impatient blob flopping back and forth. As he guides me, I try not to trip over his feet or bump into the towering trunks that are his legs._

_He sits. He lifts me and sets me on his lap. He then produces a book to hold in front of us both. “Tenet the first,” he says as I retreat into the fold of his arm. “Never dishonor the Night Mother.” He looks at me, meeting my curiosity with that of his own. “Tell me, do you understand what that means?”_

_I shake my head._

_He smiles. He sets the book aside and cradles me against his chest. His heart beats weakly inside. “It means, Little Sister, that you mustn’t neglect your Family. In all things, take care that you remember your Mother and her wishes. Remember your Father. All your Brothers and Sisters, too. So long as you never forsake them, you won’t lose your way. Your home will always be close by, arms wide open and waiting to embrace you once again.”_

_He spends the rest of the day reading to me. He reads me stories he loves, stories from when he was small, and stories from when he was big, too. But when I awake the next morning, I am told that in his sleep, my Eldest Brother went to a beautiful place. It is a place to which I cannot follow. It is a place that in time, I may glimpse._

_In my naivete, I become eager to for this day._ _This_ _unknowable, knowable beauty._

.~~~.

Aressia dipped her quill into the inkwell and swished it around. Splotches of ink dribbled in her palm as she guided the wet quill over and across the page. She’d gotten a bit too much. Still moving onward, she pressed the quill to the page, and with a twist of her hand, she weaved the next letter she was to write. Each loop and cross that followed, every twirl and zigzag, she met with the utmost care. The swift curls and heavy lines of her writing stood in contrast against the off-white parchment. They carried a hint of her typical, less showy lettering, but with a flourish. By no means were they beautiful, though. The letters didn’t deserve that declaration. Not yet.

Dip and swish. Cup and carry. Press the quill to the page. And perhaps yawn somewhere in between those steps. It was a dull routine for a dulling sort of comfort. In the past several months, when a consistent sleep schedule had become a flighty thing and Aressia had realized how deeply she regretted taking it for granted, creeping out of bed before sunrise to practice calligraphy had become her new norm. It was a stellar way for her to set her overtaxed mind at ease. Rather, it kept her from tossing and turning all night and ruining her mood before the day could begin. It wasn’t much she wrote, usually just thoughts on events she could do nothing with besides commit them to memory. Yet it was their ugliness wrapped in a shell of artistry that piqued her interest.

A sudden weight budded on the quill as she pondered those things. It was fitting that she carried the memories with her in such a manner- that is, beginning every day by securing them within her heart. She had to prevent the names and faces contained within from slipping into the recesses of her mind. There, they would surely be lost forever. Eleven years had passed since the day she’d watched helplessly as everyone and everything she loved burned around her - when the Dark Brotherhood had been all but wiped clean from the face of Tamriel. She was just a girl at the time, too old to know so little about the world, and too young to be thrust into it without a familiar anchor. It was because of that she had gotten lost. Hopelessly, irrevocably lost. But in a twist too perfect to be called anything less than destiny, a new life, a new family, gods, it was like a whole new world all at once had found her. The life she was born into vanished in the smoke of that day. And from that smoke, something new had been brought about. It was almost as if it was not her that had lived before, but someone else who had passed their memories onto her.

She glanced away from the page. Yet she _had_ lived before. It was for that reason she couldn’t let her Family disperse among the smoke clouds of the past. Unlike her, they weren’t given the option to change. Therefore, their legacy would be immortalized by her. Known only by her, if she could help it. The words would be their bodies. The beauty, their coffins. And her, the tomb to hold them all.

Looking at the page again, sighing, Aressia retrieved more ink, then brought the quill back to the page. But it was strange what she was doing. Definitely, indisputably strange. Never before had she thought of spending so much time writing. It was a droll activity. Often, she could barely drag herself back to bed by the time she finished. Assuming there was even time for sleeping. The activity offered little in return. Not unless her mother commented on how much her handwriting had improved in her next letter. However, strange as her newfound pastime was, it was the mental balm Aressia craved. On the best of days, her mind was a mess. A buzzing, crackling storm packed snugly in the space between her ears. On the worst days, she did her best to avoid thinking at all. By obscuring the ugly parts of her memory beneath her burgeoning taste for artistry, she could make those days tolerable, at least. Maybe even outlast the storm in her head, the one she had tried her hardest to escape, but just couldn’t. That, unlike a consistent sleep schedule, she would not take for granted.

Her wrist tensed at that, bending a line too early. Aressia stifled a hiss and peeked down at the deformed letter.

How awful. It drew as much attention to itself as a hulking blister on the top of somebody’s nose. It was so glaring, in fact, that the rest of the letters looked misshapen, too. Aressia set the quill aside. Her face prickled with heat. She scrunched up the parchment in her fingers. _Really,_ she thought. _A balm?_

She tossed the crumpled page aside. It landed on the floor with a rattle. The gentle snoring behind her came to an abrupt, honking end, and she turned around.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Toby,” she said, looking at the covered mound on the bed behind her. “It’s nothing. Go back to sleep.”

Tobias, plainly ignoring her suggestion, sat up, led by his shoulder. His hair was plastered to the side of his head like someone had smacked him with a wet hand in the night. He squinted at her, then at her side of the bed. Back to her again. “How did you get over there?” he asked.

“I walked,” she said. “Same as I always have, love.”

“No, I mean I didn’t even feel…” He trailed off, overtaken by a wide yawn. “I thought I had my arm around you all night. Until just now.”

“Mm. Well, it could’ve been one of those ghosts you were worried would take up residence in the basement, finally deciding to snuggle up next to you instead. Or perhaps you’re just a heavy sleeper. Which you must be with all the snoring you do.”

Tobias pushed himself out of bed before his eyes had opened all the way, scratching his chin as he staggered toward her. “My pa used to tell me that’s a sign of good rest. Scares the wolves away, too. Or it would if we lived in the woods like he did when he was a boy.”

Aressia nearly chuckled. “Then I guess it’s good that one of us is sleeping well. I wouldn’t want any wolves jumping the city walls and making a mess of things.” She reached for another sheet of paper, thinking she ought to at least pretend she was going to write some more. But Tobias was already there, drawing her attention away. He leaned over, teasingly putting a bit of his weight on her back.

“Something bothering you, sweetness?” he asked through another yawn. Raising up a bit, his hands found their way down to her shoulders. “You’re awfully tense for the day to be so young.”

Aressia dropped her hands into her lap. She rumpled the fabric of her nightgown between her fingers. If she were to be truthful, the answer to that question was a bigger yes than she could vocalize. If not because of the reason she had been writing in the first place, then because of the other things they hadn’t yet spoken of. The letter Florentius left behind that night he’d returned, the one she’d tucked away in her secret basement cellar, called out to her from its hiding place, echoing the brief words it had inscribed on her heart. She'd lost count of how many times she had read it. Dozens? Hundreds? But Tobias didn’t know about her father. He had been in Skingrad at the time, and he couldn’t know about that night when Florentius unexpectedly invited himself into their home. Not when Aressia still didn’t know which of her secrets, the glimpse of her childhood described on that crumpled page or the dysfunctional adoptive family that did their best to rescue her from it, was biggest.

“Just feeling a bit achy,” she said, sighing as he squeezed in just the right way to make her shoulders sag with relief. “I had trouble getting comfortable last night. Again. And before you ask, not even taking a bath helped this time.”

Tobias ran his fingers through her hair. “I was wondering why you smell so good.”

Aressia raised an eyebrow at him. Oh, he was trying his best. And just before sunrise, no less. “Well, instead of sleeping in the chair in front of the hearth and making my neck sore, I figured I would try another approach.”

“One that didn’t involve shoving me into the floor and replacing me with a pile of pillows?”

“Daring, I know.”

Tobias leaned on the writing desk. Arms folded in front of his chest, his eyes flicked down at the paper ball across the room. “Did it, uh, work for you?”

“Usually, that would be a yes. Today…” Aressia trailed off and stood up. She knuckled the small of her back. Her spine popped once, then twice. “Since I didn’t wake you up with my tossing and turning, let’s settle for calling it a promising start.”

Tobias smirked and pushed off the desk, humming in a teasing manner as he lumbered across the room like a giant on a mission. “Color me impressed. Thought by now you wouldn’t still be so good at sneaking around.” He opened the window shutters, filling the room with morning radiance.

“I wouldn’t bother trying to be, but I don’t think that big rat in the basement can deal with two heavy walkers in this house,” she said, crossing the room to join him at the window. “The poor thing is probably already scared to death with you stomping about.”

“That so? Maybe it’ll decide to leave, and we won’t have to keep setting traps every night.”

Aressia snickered, thinking back to how Tobias had nearly torn the basement door from its hinges in a frenetic escape when he first spotted the rat. She patted his back and looked outside, over the balcony, across the red-roofed buildings as the morning sun peeked at her from the other side of Anvil. Mists laying over from the previous night blanketed the streets below in a purple shroud, their presence calling to a more whimsical part of her spirit, begging her to venture into the dreamy air. However, she knew that despite the vivid colors flaunting themselves before her, it was only a chilly light the morning offered. The trees which were once topped with thick clumps of green leaves had turned red and orange, were soon to be turning brown, and would be losing even that with each passing day. It was a mid-Frostfall day, heralded by brisk winds and a cloudless morning; her favorite kind.

“You know, I’ve got an idea,” Aressia said, her hand drifting in wide circles across Tobias’ back. “Maybe we could take the day off? The sun hasn’t even come up yet, and I’m already worn out. We could just stay at home, you could cook some of those dumplings I love…”

She caught sight of Tobias smiling out of the corner of her eye. “So you can change your mind about them when we sit down to eat?” he said.

Aressia nodded, flashing a smirk up at him. “Then I can send you out to the tavern for something else. After that, we can sit in front of the fire. You can sketch out your ideas for that decorative sword you’ve been telling me about… ”

“And if I mess up, I’ll pass the page to you for a good crumpling.”

“And when you’re done, you could set everything aside and rub my feet for a while. Now, doesn’t that sound like a good day for both of us?”

Tobias laughed. “I thought it was supposed to be a day off. Sounds like I’ll be worked to the bone.”

“Maybe. But at least you won’t smell like a forge.”

He stooped low, looking at her with those soft eyes of his. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’d rather us keep the place open today.”

Aressia smiled and ran her hands through the soft waves of his hair. “Well, you might be the one making the jewelry, but I’m the one managing the business. And as your business manager, what I say goes.”

Tobias drew nearer, his lips floating close to hers. “Co-owner,” he said. The Skyrim drawl of his voice exaggerated the syllables in a manner she found endearing. “Which means I have as much say as you do. Might need to hire someone else, though, if you keep showing up to work late.”

“You’re the one that made me this way. Maybe I ought to replace _you_ ,” she said, tapping her finger on the tip of his nose. “That way, I can take over the business all for myself.”

A shiver ran across Tobias back. It traveled over to her through her arms, like the chill outside had suddenly invaded their home. But as far as Aressia knew, Tobias could charge outside in the snow wearing little more than a smile and still feel toasty. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Just thinking about giving you my hammer again makes my blood freeze. Think I heard my granddad hollering all the way in Sovngarde.” He turned his chin up, grimacing. “Sorry, granddad.”

“Oh, you make it sound like I hurt somebody.” She thumped his chest. “I only broke a window. The glass didn’t even take long to clean up.”

“Yeah, because I was the one cleaning it all up.”

Aressia stuck her tongue out between her teeth and smiled.

Tobias pulled her into his arms. He let out a long sigh and punctuated it with a chuckle. “How about we meet in the middle and close up around midday? I don’t have to be late finishing that order we got yesterday, but it’ll still leave me enough time this afternoon to cook the dumplings, go to the tavern for something else, sketch out that sword, _and_ give you a foot rub.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know…” A giggle she didn’t expect came bubbling out.

“Fine. I’ll try to come up with something else to surprise you. Deal?”

Aressia had just enough time to let out a sigh of willing defeat as he leaned down to kiss her. His lips flared hot against hers, shoving aside the clouds of worry in her head like a flash of light in a pitch-black dungeon. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight, as if having a hair’s width of space between them was unacceptable, and pulled her up onto her toes. A little more and she’d wonder if he intended to sweep her off her feet and carry her away. A little more and she’d begin worrying she wouldn’t be able to pull away, fearing the pang of loss that she knew would follow.

“Okay, okay,” she said, stepping back to take a breath before she lost all sense of the world around her, already feeling lightheaded. “You’ve got yourself a deal. But before we go, do something about that breath of yours. It’s strong.”

Tobias’ grin was a mischievous tilt. He turned and walked away. “As if yours is any better?”

“I know it is. I’ve already cleaned my teeth. Now get to it before I have to get nasty.”

He stopped and leaned on the door frame, arms crossed. “Hm. Already figured me out?”

She laughed. “You know, for someone trying to convince me I should go to work, you’re doing a fine job of making me want to drag both of us back to bed. So I encourage you to pick your next words _very_ carefully.”

Tobias, evidently pleased with his flawless albeit goofy victory, spun on his heel, and strutted out of the room. Aressia watched the opening of the room after he was gone. A piece of her was disgruntled at how effortlessly he’d changed her quiet moping for the better. The other part didn’t know what to feel. Exhausted, maybe. Flustered, probably.

Impressed?

Begrudgingly. He had tried, and by what could’ve been only the luck of the Divines, he’d succeeded.

 _If only for a moment._ Aressia exhaled carefully as tension once again crept up inside her. _If only for a moment._

She listened as Tobias thumped down the stairs, waiting until she lost track of him before she exhaled a breath she’d held in her lungs and crossed the room, heading toward the wardrobe. The fun was over, and she soured, knowing what awaited her would be a test of her patience, and of her ability to guess correctly. A basket piled high with clothes that seemed to have shrunk overnight lurked in the shadow cast by the wardrobe, a monument to her trend of being horribly wrong with her guesses. Despite her frustration, however, the basket seemed as if it innocently wanted to remind her of another fact.

She winced. _As if I really needed to be reminded._

Aressia placed her hand just below her ribs as the baby tumbled inside her. Not long ago, she had all but laughed at the idea of having children, at least anytime soon. Now that she thought of it, maybe she had laughed. She had surely insisted to the nosy old priestesses at the Chapel of Dibella after they’d pried one too many times into her business that it was much too early to have a baby. In another year, perhaps. Maybe two. But most likely more. Anvil was safe. There was plenty of time for her and Tobias to settle into their lives as they were. They needn't rush into anything, and they could take on changes as they wished. At that, some had agreed. Others had hummed in a manner that suggested doubt, as if her choices were theirs to be concerned with.

But change happened anyway, and no amount of wishing she could wait a bit longer for it to come mattered anymore. One priestess, a middle-aged woman named Hildessa, with her unenviable ability to be imprecise about important things, estimated that Aressia had nearly two-and-a-half months left. Those two-and-a-half months, Hildessa had told her, would be a precious time filled with wonder and happiness beyond anything she had ever experienced before. The woman had seven children, so she clearly considered herself to be of some authority on the matter.

Aressia frowned. If nothing else, Hildessa had gotten the wonder part correct. Aressia _wondered_ what she was going to do. Two-and-a-half months wasn’t a long time, and there was still so much to do. So much to learn. She knew nothing of caring for children. By Sithis, the most experience she had was holding a baby for five minutes. That had been nearly four years ago, and the baby had squealed the entire time, so she wasn't sure if that amounted to much. She had tried to prepare as best she could, but still she felt she’d been lacking. That she would still _be_ lacking when it happened, the day when she...

She almost shivered. Now wasn't the time to worry about that. Aressia hurriedly opened the topmost drawer of the wardrobe and removed a pair of dresses. One was grassy green and the other was dingy red. Without much thought, she changed into the green one. Taking a deep breath, she stepped in front of the mirror. _Good enough,_ she thought, forcing herself away from her reflection before she had time to notice anything she wasn't quite so fond of. She grabbed a cloak to wrap around her shoulders, slipped on a pair of shoes, and decided she was as ready as she’d ever be. Leaving the bedroom, she grabbed the tiny satchel hanging from a nail in the wall next to the door, and headed downstairs.

Tobias was sitting in front of the darkened hearth, already wearing his apron over a dusty old shirt and trousers. His favorite pair of gloves hung from his pocket, an old leather set he’d insisted were blessed by Zenithar himself, and maybe Kyne, too. He looked at her, his smile beaming as he stood up. “I’ve always liked green on you,” he said. The keys jingled in his hand as he fingered through them, walking toward the front door. He yanked on the knob and the door flew open with a squeak.

“Really? Well, in that case, let’s hope I don’t have to toss this one into the basket in another week,” Aressia said, passing under his outstretched arm and into the street. “Otherwise, I’m afraid I might have to resort to buying different colored tents.”

Tobias twisted around, shutting the door, and expertly planted a kiss on her cheek. “And if you do, you’ll still be the most beautiful woman in the whole of Tamriel,” he said. “That’s something you don’t need to hope for.”

Aressia let out a whine as they began to walk. That was easy for him to say. He had probably worn clothing with as much fabric since he was a boy.

“Besides, it’s been a while since we camped out,” Tobias said, bumping her shoulder.

With a snort, she barely contained her chuckle. “It’s a bit early to be getting smacked, don’t you think?”

Tobias only laughed.

.~~~.

As Aressia and Tobias made their way to the jewelry store, the early birds and city guards of Anvil were already out, walking the streets, going about their own business in the morning air. Coming from the dockside just beyond the city walls, bells aboard the moored ships dinged back to the cracked bell tower above the Chapel of Dibella - soft and serene. Anvil wouldn’t become much livelier as the day went on. It would only become slightly more crowded. Young or old, man or mer, it didn’t matter. They all seemed to progress through the day with lackadaisical speed, as if they had lost the meanings of burden and haste. At times, Aressia wondered if time itself moved slower in the city. Not that she disliked it. Rather, that was one of the reasons she had come to enjoy the city. The people were sleepy. More than that, they didn't pry. They left her to her own business and she left them to theirs. It wasn't as if they were unfriendly, though. An unspoken agreement between individuals to respect the peace of the other was not unlike the silent camaraderie she'd become accustomed to while living among the upper crust types of Aleswell, and it was a luxury she figured she'd not find again.

Something moved ahead, catching Aressia's eye. Something akin to a raggedy shadow. She squinted as whatever it was vanished around the street corner.

“Oh, damn it,” Tobias said, making her snap her attention to him as he patted around his sides. “Did you grab that drawing book of mine? I didn’t see it on the table downstairs.”

Aressia looked at the street corner again and saw that it was bare. “I thought you had it,” she said, pulling at her cloak as a cool breeze rushed through the street. Whatever she had noticed, it was gone now. _Probably just an animal._

“I thought _you_ had it.” Tobias droned on. He grumbled another curse as he grabbed the keys from his belt and handed them to her. “Never mind. I’ll be back. If it wouldn’t trouble you, go on ahead and open the place up. If anyone comes to pick up an order before I get back, just have them wait inside. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Aressia spun the key ring around on her finger, watching as he jogged off in the other direction. “I will, but those new glass cases aren’t moving until you get there!”

Tobias continued to job, waving his hand around in the air. She took that gesture as some form of agreement and continued on.

When she arrived at the shop, Aressia fumbled with the keys, searching for the right one. Tobias, as if to spite the sheer complexity he could weave into his jewelry, had made a dozen damned keys that looked exactly the same. All jagged edges with dashes of the same colored paint. She jammed each key into the lock. Each yielded no results. There was a time when she thought maybe they could compete with the town’s locksmith and expand their market. That was a misplaced hope, she now understood. Just as she began to think the worst that could happen was being forced to stand outside until Tobias arrived, the key ring slipped from her grasp and clanged on the brick stairs.

“Gods damn it,” she cursed. As she squeezed the doorknob, reaching down for the keys, Aressia’s hand slipped and turned.

The doorknob went with it.

She froze. A lump formed in her throat. Her shoulders tensed without warning. She snatched the keys up from the ground, turning the knob until the door cracked open. Unlocked. Aressia twisted the doorknob again for good measure. She was certain she had locked it the night before, though. It wasn’t possible she had forgotten. She would sooner leave her brain at home than forget to lock a door.

A guard passed along in the street behind her. His armored boots clanked and dinged, the weight of his scrutinizing gaze hard on her every move. Aressia drew out of her thoughts and did her best to give him an innocent wave and smile. He returned the gesture with a stern nod before continuing onward, leaving her to wait until he had turned the corner before her eyes darted back to the door.

Cold sweat beaded up along her forehead. She had locked the door. She knew that for sure. And someone had broken in. Someone with enough skill and subtlety to pick the lock and not simply toss a stone through the window. Her thoughts returned to what she had seen on the street corner.

Aressia stepped away from the door and peered down at the Shadowmark burned into the stones on the store's foundation. It was a simple thing and probably missed by everybody who came to do business, but it denoted that her property was off-limits to the Thieves Guild. They wouldn’t dare break in, not unless they wanted to face a swift expulsion from the Guild and a public outing to the guards the moment she could get a letter delivered to Skingrad. It had to be a petty criminal. Someone who didn't know the much besides purposeless crime. Aressia reached into her satchel, feeling around until her fingers could trace along the sheathed edge of the shiv inside. Tobias didn't know it, but the shiv was one of the few things she would never leave home without. She slipped it out of its covering, ready to push into the store and find out what had happened, when she found her body refused to move.

Why? It couldn’t possibly be something she wasn’t able to handle.

Could it?

No, it couldn’t. In fact, she knew it wasn’t. Between the training she had received as a child and the extensive swordsmanship lessons Florentius had given her, she was sure there were only a few people in Cyrodiil she couldn’t outdo with skill alone, not to mention guile, and she doubted any of them would come to a jewelry store in Anvil. Maybe she hadn’t sneaked in and out of any places, hadn’t stolen or fought in a few years now, but that didn’t mean she would have any issue remembering how to do all those things.

So why was she hesitating? It was ridiculous.

Clutching the shiv so tight her knuckles turned a pasty white, Aressia entered the dim store and shut the door behind her, sealing the intruder’s fate with an echoing click.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that took longer than expected. To get this chapter out, is what I'm saying. Busy times, these days. Fun fact for you folks; leaving a finished chapter in the drafts without posting for too long is a big no-no. You can, in fact, lose aforementioned finished chapter. A chapter which was written...two years ago? Almost, that is. In another month. Yikes. Time doesn't just fly, it soars. Anyway, with that said, I'm glad to finally release this thing into the world so that it may (hopefully) stop burning a hole in my hard drive.
> 
> Also, this is a bit different than my usual flavor of writing, so if you've read the other part of Melody of the Arcane and had a great time, I hope you'll enjoy this as well. :)


End file.
